Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Dead fish found at one of our area’s most pristine lakes has caught the attention of state officials. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat commission is trying to find out what caused the dead fish to wash ashore at Eagles Mere Lake in Sullivan County.

In these clear blue waters in Sullivan County, dozens and dozens of dead fish have been floating to the surface. Mostly sunfish, trout and bass have been found dead. Some people who work in the Eagles Mere lake community say it’s more than fishy.

“It`s scary because people fish out of there, there`s kids in here in the summertime,” said Brittany Mapes of Forksville.

The remote and troubled First Nations communities of Attawapiskat and Kashechewan are under a state of emergency after dozens of homes on the James Bay coast due to rising waters causing sewage system failures.

Forty homes in Kashechewan and 20 in Attawapiskat have been overrun by sewage, officials said Tuesday.

“It’s the exact same story in both places,” MP Charlie Angus (NDP – Timmins-James Bay) said. “There was heavy snow fall, and a fast melt, the ditches are still icy, so the water just ran. The sewage stations have always been substandard, that’s been part of the problem with the housing crisis before — when the sewage backs up and destroys the living conditions.”

The hospital in Attawapiskat has also been evacuated and patients are being housed in a community centre.

Two were injured and three others buried on Tuesday after a lab explosion in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, local authorities said.

The explosion took place at around 9 a.m. in a laboratory in Nanjing University of Science and Technology, toppling down the lab and shattering windows of houses nearby, according to the city's fire department.

Rescue work was underway, and the cause of the explosion is being investigated, local police said.

An eight-year-old girl who was found stabbed to death at her California home was not the victim of a random attack - but was targeted, police have said.

Leila Fowler was discovered on Saturday at her home in the rural community of Valley Springs by her 12-year-old brother, who told police he came face-to-face with the suspect as he fled the scene on foot.

Investigators have released a vague description of the man, but are still trying to determine his identity.

Mark Grant sits on the aft deck of his yacht in South Florida's spring sun, ostentatiously relishing his wealth as only an American does, and dispensing advice. He's made his money, and he likes to wear it.

Grant's personality is as big as his mansion and as flashy as his collection of exotic cars — he actually calls himself "The Wizard," a tribute to his own financial acumen.

While we are talking, his cellphone rings intermittently, and the callers are usually serious moneymen. Bill Gross of Pimco, the world's largest bond agency, is a friend; his praise adorns the dust jacket of Grant's recent book.

Cyprus's parliament approved an EU bailout on Tuesday which will force it to wind down its second-largest bank and impose heavy losses on uninsured depositors at another, conditions that have intensified calls from islanders to exit the euro.

With a razor-thin majority of just two votes, lawmakers approved terms accompanying 10 billion euros ($13.18 billion)in aid from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a show of hands, 29 lawmakers from the three parties in the center-right government approved the motion, with 27 voting against. .

Arizona cities and counties that hold community gun buyback events will have to sell the surrendered weapons instead of destroying them under a bill Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Monday.

The bill was championed by Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature who argued that municipalities were skirting a 2010 law that was tightened last year and requires police to sell seized weapons to federally licensed dealers. They argued that destroying property turned over to the government is a waste of taxpayer resources.

Economic development researchers have unveiled a database revealing details of China’s financial aid to Africa. The information bank dispels previous assumptions that Beijing is focusing solely on resource extraction and big infrastructure projects.

The database, which was developed by the Washington-based Center for Global Development and AidData, includes 1,673 Chinese development finance projects worth US$75 billion in 50 African countries from the years 2000-2011.

Nasa has published a series of incredible photos revealing the epic scale of a hurricane locked in position at Saturn's north pole.

The US space agency's Cassini spacecraft has been in the planet's orbit since 2004, monitoring weather patterns and taking snapshots of meteroids crashing into its icy rings. But a good view of the north pole has so far remained elusive during the planet's winter, and with one year on Saturn equal to about 29.5 on Earth, it's been a long, long winter. Cassini has instead been hovering over a mass of weather the size of two Earths referred to as the "hexagon", for its strange six-sided formation, and it hasn't been possible to take any clear pictures of the north pole since those taken by Voyager 2 in 1981.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed today that his national security team had been receiving payments from the U.S. government for the past 10 years.

Karzai revealed the payments when he was asked about a story published in The New York Times.

The article said the CIA had given the Afghan National Security Council tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags in return for access to his inner circle.

The cash payments are the first known to be given directly to President Karzai.

Neskantaga First Nation declared a state of emergency nearly two weeks ago because of a spike in suicides, but the community 480 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont., has received little government support to help it deal with the crisis.

The few local leaders not crippled by grief are struggling to administer all the ordinary needs of the community of 300 — and deal with the crisis.

"Since the end of last year ... we average about 10 [suicide attempts] per month, and at one time we surpassed 30 attempts in one month," said emergency response co-ordinator Chris Moonias.

Moonias said he has been working round the clock since the suicide of a 35-year-old earlier this month. A teenager killed himself days later, prompting the state of emergency.

Two small airplanes apparently collided in midair over the Southern California mountains yesterday, sending one crashing into a rocky ridge while the second was able to maneuver a belly-flop landing on a nearby golf course.

Three people on the plane that landed on a fairway had minor injuries as stunned golfers looked on.

FBI agents have visited the Rhode Island home of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife Katherine Russell reportedly to take a sample of her DNA after traces of a woman were found on one of the bombs used in the Boston Marathon attacks.

Spokesman Jason Pack confirmed that agents investigating the Boston bombings visited the North Kingstown home of Russell's parents, where Tsarnaev's widow has been staying since the attacks.

According to The Wall Street Journal, agents went to the house to collect a DNA sample from Russell in a bid to rule out her involvement in the bombings.

An official close to the case told the newspaper that female DNA has been found on at least one of the bombs used in the Boston Marathon attacks. Though investigators haven't determined whose DNA it is or whether the DNA means a woman helped the two suspects carry out the bombings.

Most of the 50 remaining South Korean workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex returned home late Monday night after North Korea ignored a deadline Seoul set for talks to keep the factory complex going. But seven are stuck there while the North tries to squeeze every last possible penny out of the South.

They are staff from the committee in charge of operating the industrial park, utility KEPCO, the Korea Water Resources Corporation, the Korea Land and Housing Corporation, telecom provider KT and Woori Bank.

They were scheduled to vacate the complex at 5 p.m. Monday, but North Korean officials, citing unfinished business, effectively took them hostage by refusing to authorize their departure.

Israel’s armed forces launched a snap division-scale drill along the full length of the Syrian and Lebanese borders Tuesday, April 30, with call-up orders for thousands of reservists, debkafile’s military sources report.

It was taken into account that the unannounced exercise would send military tensions shooting up on the volatile Israeli, Jordanian, Syrian and Lebanese borders. Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah headquarters would assume that Israel is massing troops in advance of US military intervention in Syria.

Its timing is also connected to the speech Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to deliver Tuesday night in case he announces military steps against Israel.

Our Washington sources report that President Barack Obama is poised for a momentous decision on whether to pursue military action against Syrian military targets, including Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons facilities.

These appear to be his three primary options:

1. An American aerial bombardment of the Syrian military bases and facilities which are the mainstay which keep Bashar Assad in power;

2. A missile strike on his chemical weapons from the sea and from ground bases in Europe and the Middle East;

3. The deployment of 20,000 American troops to the Jordanian-Syrian frontier.

Enrico Letta, prime minister of Italy's new coalition government, has put Europe on guard that Rome will seek stronger moves towards political union and pro-growth policies during his talks in Berlin, Paris and Brussels this week.

Mr Letta, a committed supporter of Europe, warned that the creation of the single currency was not sufficient on its own.

"Now we have to make up for lost time. That time was lost because too many countries have looked at the elections of the day after and by doing this they have made it harder to explain to citizens that they had to concede sovereignty even on other points," Mr Letta said in a speech to the Italian senate before leaving to meet Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor who is seeking re-election in September.

"Our destiny as Europeans is common, otherwise it will be made up of individual countries that will slowly decline . . . in a world where the powers of countries with populations in their billions will prevail," Mr Letta said.

According to the Center for Preventive Medicine in the northern province of Lao Cai, five of the patients who contracted A/H1N1 Flu virus in Quang Kim Commune in Bat Xat District are showing positive signs of recovery after receiving treatment at the General Hospital.

These patients had been hospitalized after complaints of fever, cough, and respiratory problems. Test results showed positive for H1N1 virus.

Following this, health authorities then rushed to their neighborhood to take more samples for testing as well as advised local medical workers to tighten supervision on those who had directly come into contact with the patients.http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Health/2013/4/104811/

The Hamilton County Health Department has issued a rabies alert for the Jennings area of Hamilton County. This is in response to a raccoon that tested positive for rabies on April 26, 2013.

All citizens in Hamilton should be aware that rabies is present in the wild animal population and domestic animals are at risk if not vaccinated. The public is asked to maintain heightened awareness that rabies is active in Hamilton County. Alerts are designed to increase awareness to the public, but they should not give a false sense of security to areas that have not been named as under an alert.

The recent rabies alert is for 60 days. The center of the rabies alert is NW 9th Drive and includes the following area boundaries in Hamilton County:

Cyprus's lawmakers were set agree a bailout on Tuesday which will force it to wind down its second-largest bank and impose heavy losses on uninsured depositors at another, conditions that have intensified calls from islanders to exit the euro.

Shut out of financial markets for two years, Cyprus would fall into chaotic default if parliament votes against the bill, government officials have warned.

"We have had enough of delusions. We don't have another choice. Whoever has one should tell us what it is," Cypriot government spokesman Christos Stylianides told state radio.

No single party has a majority in the 56-member parliament, and the government is counting on support from members of its three-party center-right coalition which has 30 seats in total. It needs 29 votes for the bill to pass, considered a certainty.

Rioters attacked a mosque and Muslim businesses in central Myanmar on Tuesday, police said, the closest a series of sectarian clashes pitting Muslims against majority Buddhists has come to the commercial capital Yangon.

Roaming gangs armed with bricks smashed the mosque's windows and looted dozens of shops after a Muslim woman collided with a Buddhist monk while walking in the street, angering residents, a police statement said.

"Police had to disperse the crowd by firing warning shots," presidential spokesman Ye Htut said in a statement on his Facebook page. He said order had been restored in Oakkan village, 100 km (60 miles) north of Yangon, Myanmar's former capital and by far its largest city.

Italian police on Tuesday arrested four of six men they suspect are members of an Islamist militant cell which was planning attacks in the United States, Israel and Italy, though no specific targets were named by police.

The men aimed to train militants and send them abroad, para-military police said, and are suspected of conspiracy to commit international terrorism and inciting racial hatred.

They were arrested in Andria in the southern Italian region of Puglia, where police say the group was based, and in Milan, Brussels and Catania, Sicily, and include a Tunisian who was the former imam at a mosque in Andria, police said.

A planned terror attack - possibly aimed at assassinating English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson - only failed because the rally being targeted finished earlier than planned and the would-be attackers turned up late.

Six islamist extremists from the Birmingham area have pleaded guilty to plotting the attack on an EDL march in the West Yorkshire town of Dewsbury last June.

Spain's economy shrank for the seventh straight quarter from January to March, preliminary data showed on Tuesday, and the recession looks set to last into next year.

Acute joblessness and grim economic data from Spain and other euro zone countries have fueled a raging debate over whether Europe should abandon austerity policies that are still favored by regional powerhouse Germany.

Spain's Gross Domestic Product contracted 0.5 percent in the first three months of this year from the last quarter of 2012, according to preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute, dragged lower by sliding domestic demand.

A planned terror attack - possibly aimed at assassinating English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson - only failed because the rally being targeted finished earlier than planned and the would-be attackers turned up late.

Six islamist extremists from the Birmingham area have pleaded guilty to plotting the attack on an EDL march in the West Yorkshire town of Dewsbury last June.

A statement from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said the airstrike had targeted an Islamic militant called Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal, 24, who it claimed was involved in a recent rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat.

It is the first deadly airstrike carried out by Israel since a ceasefire in November.